One Man's Meat

The media storm surrounding GEO and Hamid Mir made me realize that this world is ever-ready to exploit your misfortune to its own advantage! The beauty with which other news channels worked up a barrage of spiteful criticism was quite astounding! Not that I'm siding with GEO over its useless propaganda about Pakistani intelligence service nor am I a proponent of dancing on sacred qawalis. I'm so over the efforts of every channel to outdo each other with insane breaking news, talk shows and reports. GEO was going down fast like a leaky boat and the other channels pushed it down with gusto. I wonder how the GEO news team feels about landing in the grave it had dug for others?

Me, being an avid fan of conspiracy theories, thought about whether the downfall of GEO was a systematic chain of events planned by the "Unseen Hand" or was it all just a major coincidence? I have gotten so used to looking for clue and cues to the "bigger picture" in recent events that the most obvious facts don't entice me one bit :p Because they are usually dangled in front of our noses by the perpetrators of these events! When the Malala incident happened, I felt my heart break for the innocent little girl who had braved the harshness of her environment to raise a voice for female education. But as the incident unraveled further, all I could see was a carefully planned and executed media campaign that blatantly used Malala's tragedy to make Pakistan look like a place where no girl gets education because of the Taliban. If you closely observe the situation of educational institutions in the Taliban-struck areas, they are suffering from poor sanitary conditions, lack of teachers, absence of proper seating arrangement and damaged infrastructure. People refrain from sending their daughters to school in such pathetic conditions and on top of that primary education is not even free! Who wants to send their child - either male or female - to a useless school when they do not have enough money to feed the entire family? The impoverished and war-torn zone first needs serious rehabilitation measures before anyone can talk about education! But making Malala a martyr in the cause of education, suited the international media just fine, since it gave many stakeholders of the war against terror solid backing for promoting their agenda.

Sometimes the lines just blur and we can't even figure out who is benefiting more from this war against terror. Pakistan is right now a hub of external and internal influences, illegitimate funds, sordid schemes and unparalleled destruction. The people of Pakistan are caught in the crossfire and they are the ones losing everything - starting from their lives, loved ones, peace of mind and everything in between. On the other hand, the people orchestrating this war against terror have reaped countless geo-political and financial gains from all this. Who cares how many people lay down their lives, as long as it serves as media chowder that can be used for bigger purposes. It only goes to show that one man's meat is another man's poison.

As you sow shall you reap...

We have all grown up watching the Tom and Jerry cartoons. They are a part of our childhood memories and somehow I rather enjoy watching them again to refresh those memories and laugh for a while. My daughter also likes Tom and Jerry as much as I do but I'm beginning to view the cartoons in a different light ever since I became a parent. The cartoon makes us laugh on the different escapades of Jerry who manages to outwit Tom every time - save for a couple of times that Tom triumphs. In the process Tom usually gets beaten, bamboozled, and sometimes even broken to bits! The laughter value is pretty good but when you think about it, it actually means that it's okay to laugh at a person who is being hit for no obvious fault of his own and fighting is the only means of settling a score. This is against the norms that we wish to impart to our children but given that they watch such cartoons everyday, I'm sure it will stay somewhere in their heads. In a similar vein is another cartoon called Oggy and the Cockroaches. It is about a cat named Oggy being harassed by a trio of cockroaches and quite frankly that cartoon is more towards the disgusting side of entertainment - filled with acts that violate the basic etiquette that we teach our children. And the list of cartoons with objectionable content goes on and on....


I am a mother guilty of using the television as a nanny when needed but recently I have started cutting down the amount of time my daughter spends in front of the tube. I have watched most of the cartoons myself to ensure that they do not contain anything that is either alien to our culture or is sure to plant crazy ideas in my child's head. It is a difficult job to explain to a little girl why she can't watch the cartoons that make her laugh the most but I am trying to draw a line somewhere. I know a person who does not allow kids to watch television entirely but even that deprivation is not healthy for kids living in today's modern society. A kid cannot comprehend why everyone else can do a certain thing and he/she can't. I have always talked about the influence of media in our lives and now I worry about what it could do to our kids! The shows aired on kids channels are also devoid of any real positive purpose and portray the most vile characters as being the most popular. The subject matter of the different shows is rather artificial and promotes useless concepts that should not be the objectives of young minds, like: chasing after girls/boys via different tactics, using money and looks rather than brains to gain attention and above all giving cheeky answers to adults to show assertiveness. Sometimes I talk to my daughter about what she just saw on television and explain to her that the act was bad and the person doing it was being nasty. Thankfully she responds well and next time points out the same act and says she will not do it because it was not nice. It is a start to discovering the good and bad side of things.

A young and open mind will absorb whatever is coming at it, which is why not just television but also the home environment are key factors in deciding its orientation. A household, where everybody has the habit of shouting at each other and misbehaving, is sure to produce children who are prone to bad behavior. Not everything can be taught to kids, because they have a very keen observation and watch our every move with diligence and ultimately copy it. The wise old saying that children are merely a reflection of their parents is true 100%. Their shining eyes look up to us as a role model and it is not their fault that they feel good about behaving like their mom and dad. We are the ones around them since the day they were born and they dote on us! Life does change when you have children because at first you only think about yourself but now you have to think about the latest additions to the family, who are capable of leading you to Heaven or Hell. Allah does cater to the needs of every child that is born but He has left it up to the parents on how they raise that child. And it is scientifically proven that till the age of ten, a child's personality is developing and parents play a crucial role in shaping that persona. As parents, we have to try our best that our children are a worthy reflection of all the good that lies inside us. Because as you sow, shall you reap....